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LOGIE

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Gazza
Scalpers are generally only going to care about or make their money on the best seats. If you use a method to take those out of the ticket-selling system by not having them onsale along with the rest of the tickets, then you reduce the problem.

It CAN be done for the most part by, for example, selling tickets for the first 15-20 rows of an arena/stadium show in the same way that its done for all tickets to a theatre show (using Stones shows as an example) - ie using will-call,a 2-ticket limit, wristbands, photo ID etc. For the upcoming Tom Waits shows, they not only use this system but you have to give the name of the person who's taking your second ticket within a few days of your purchase.

If there's a will, it can be done. Unfortunately, as was the case with an act who shall remain nameless, when you advertise ticket prices for shows in your home city at £70-150 but then dont make any of the tickets available (even in fan club presales) for the first ten rows when they first go on sale, but siphon them off to brokers and extortionately priced travel companies who then sell them on at double or triple the price (or more), it tends to give the impression that you couldnt care less and are, in fact, financially benefitting from it.

That's also scalping as far as I'm concerned.

I agree, it IS scalping. There is no other word for it.

The same is happening with the Stevie Wonder tickets for his forthcoming UK shows where the first ten rows cost £325 each (plus booking fee) for the privelege of having a meal thrown in, while the Hot Seats for rows 11-15, are a mere snip at just £199 each (plus booking fee).

If you don't want a meal, a programme, a special gift or a souvenir laminate, there's row 16 at £75, if the normal touts haven't got to them first.

Quite, I entirely agree. BTW, anyone heard of this ?

[www.getmein.com]

Well, you'll not fail to notice that it's yet ANOTHER Ticketmaster company. It's bloody obvious what's going on here, as Gazza & Logie have pointed out, and that is quite simply that healthy chunks of desirable seats are NEVER being made available to the general public, and neither through pre-sales (well certainly not Rolling Stones pre-sales judging by the crap I was initially offered using LEGACY memberships) for that matter. Instead, they're being siphoned off to re-sellers. You can call these "second in line" companies what you sodding well like, but in reality they are two things, they are (a) re-sellers, and (b) in view of the fact that the re-selling "involves a price hike" ... they're f***ing scalpers. It's all very well dressing this activity up with fancy websites (Seatwave, the one above, etc etc) and trying to portray what's being done as "legit" - for want of a better expression, but the fact of the matter is that the company representing the INITIAL source of the tickets, whose job it is to sell those tickets at the price advertised on THEIR website (lets say Ticketmaster as an example), feeds this activity by siphoning off to them direct, stuff that SHOULD by rights be made available to the general public.

Countless examples: take any decent artist performing recently at the O2. You go online, nothing decent. Within minutes, you'll see fantastic seats in centre blocks first few rows appearing EITHER on the Ticket Exchange facility on the TM website itself, or lo and behold, on Seatwave or the likes of this new thing ... "getmein". And the common denominator between ALL of these means of re-selling ? O f*** me, now there's a surprise. The price has gone up !!

It's bollocks, plain and simple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-07-16 11:57 by paulywaul.

And i'll say it again. The artist is NEVER blameless in this. Tom Waits put his foot down and said to the promoters "I don't want scalpers fleecing my fans" and the promoters hopped to it.

The rest of 'em, including our beloved Stones, couldn't give a flying continental feck. Ticketmaster is NOT the problem. They're providing a service, but if promoters/acts didn't make these tickets available to the www.getmein.com site, they would wither and die.

Fact is that promoters/bands want the kickback for the decent tickets and play along. I guess to an extent, there's a belief among bands that seeing as scalpers will inevitably make money, they might as well try and clip into that market too...

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stone-relics
Die Scalper SCUM!

end of discussion.

JR

Hear hear.

NickB

You can't always get what you want.....

www.myspace.com/thesonkings

I have mixed emotions about the whole ticket agency thing.

When I was a kid I slept in front of the box office to get a ticket and then slept outside the venue to get the best place possible.

Here in France there is a ticket agency that sells most tickets about 6-10 euros above the face value. I find this very affordable and don't have to deal with the crappy system of official ticket vendors.

A friend of a friend of mine, started the online service ticketweb sometime in the mid 90's. A small online ticket service that delt with San FRancisco area clubs and eventually getting a little bigger.

They were bought out by ticketmaster for $35 million about 5 years later.

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Gazza
Scalpers are generally only going to care about or make their money on the best seats. If you use a method to take those out of the ticket-selling system by not having them onsale along with the rest of the tickets, then you reduce the problem.

It CAN be done for the most part by, for example, selling tickets for the first 15-20 rows of an arena/stadium show in the same way that its done for all tickets to a theatre show (using Stones shows as an example) - ie using will-call,a 2-ticket limit, wristbands, photo ID etc. For the upcoming Tom Waits shows, they not only use this system but you have to give the name of the person who's taking your second ticket within a few days of your purchase.

If there's a will, it can be done. Unfortunately, as was the case with an act who shall remain nameless, when you advertise ticket prices for shows in your home city at £70-150 but then dont make any of the tickets available (even in fan club presales) for the first ten rows when they first go on sale, but siphon them off to brokers and extortionately priced travel companies who then sell them on at double or triple the price (or more), it tends to give the impression that you couldnt care less and are, in fact, financially benefitting from it.

That's also scalping as far as I'm concerned.

Hi Gazza,

I agree with you to a point. Tom Waits takes it too far though. I have a scenario where I have two tix for Edinburgh and my brother and his wife have taken a last minute holiday leaving us without a babysitter. My wife was with me at the gig in St Louis and it wouldn't break her heart to miss this one and stay home with the wee one. I could have taken a friend instead. Anyway we phoned ticketmaster and explained all this and they were having none of it. There is NO WAY to refund, or transfer the ticket even if my wife comes to the venue to vouch for the change.
I understand where Tom Waits intentions lie, but this gig will be like getting through customs at Moscow (God forbid anyone forget their PHOTOGRAPHIC ID).

How did a drunken old barfly end up with the tightest security this side of the Gestapo.

Anyway Gazza, we have (hopefully) now sourced a babysitter and will be present and correct for the show

Fingers crossed for "On the Nickel"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-07-16 22:42 by letitloose.